Cold calling

G'day business owners and current/former cold callers, I have a few questions I'd like to run past you. As a bit of background, my current cold calling strategy is:

- Send out some promotional material via email
- Call the prospects a week later and keep calling until I get one of the following: a meeting, a phone discussion (which leads to a meeting or additional information) or a flat out rejection.

I keep a list of approx. 40 prospects at any given time and call them all in one go twice a week.

My questions are:

- Should I continue calling them all (40 phone calls a day) two days a week? Say, Tuesday and Thursday.
- Should I break it up and call half one day and half the other, so that I am calling them only once a week?
- Is calling twice a week overkill or seen as being persistent?
- How many times should I call a prospect before giving up without getting an answer? At the moment, I just ring as many times as it takes to get an answer. In the back of my mind, I think 'What if I had tried just one more time - maybe that would have sealed the deal?' But I also understand that this may be hurting my business as I am wasting time on dead ends when I could be out farming for more prospects.

What are your thoughts? Cold callers - do you have any tips you could offer?

Thanks in advance!
 
Depends on the industry. But I have heard (unconfirmed) that the Jehovah's Witness get one in 20 by cold calling.

Do not stalk or become a nuisance. But continue to stay in touch. You want to be the person calling in just after the client's current supplier has slipped up.

It is a numbers game but you need to be focused, not scattergun in your approach.

Also be honest with yourself. If your target market finds you unappealing in any way you will need to work very hard. If you keep failing then ask for feedback and be prepared to listen.
 
There should be a mechanism in your email promotional material whereby interested parties can respond to you e.g. click on a button that leads to your website or a special offer. I think that you should only call the people who click.
 
G'day business owners and current/former cold callers, I have a few questions I'd like to run past you. As a bit of background, my current cold calling strategy is:

- Send out some promotional material via email
- Call the prospects a week later and keep calling until I get one of the following: a meeting, a phone discussion (which leads to a meeting or additional information) or a flat out rejection.

I keep a list of approx. 40 prospects at any given time and call them all in one go twice a week.

My questions are:

- Should I continue calling them all (40 phone calls a day) two days a week? Say, Tuesday and Thursday.
- Should I break it up and call half one day and half the other, so that I am calling them only once a week?
- Is calling twice a week overkill or seen as being persistent?
- How many times should I call a prospect before giving up without getting an answer? At the moment, I just ring as many times as it takes to get an answer. In the back of my mind, I think 'What if I had tried just one more time - maybe that would have sealed the deal?' But I also understand that this may be hurting my business as I am wasting time on dead ends when I could be out farming for more prospects.

What are your thoughts? Cold callers - do you have any tips you could offer?

Thanks in advance!

I used to work in sales for a company selling only tickets to high profile conferences mainly in the government sector - priced between $2 - $5k a ticket. My KPI was 200 dials per day and 3 hours talk time, and it was all based around the SPIN sales methodology.

It worked very well for us who stuck to this method and often got "pitch and closes" (got a sale at the end of the very first call)

Basically, it was all about building credibility in the 1st 30 seconds including floating a few situations, and building on these with problem and implication questions and ultimately making your customer admit something personal will happen to them if they don't make a change i.e. they would be responsible and could lose their job. Then you would turn it around by asking how it would help if there was a way to overcome the problem and getting them to open up about the potential "fix" (e.g it would mean they wouldn't lose their job), and ultimately talking about various speakers at your conference who had exactly the same problem and had found ways to overcome them.

After 4 years of doing this day in and day out, I found the ability to build value with complete randoms was priceless. It took a lot of practice and you really have to get your tone and questions perfect, but once you build credibility and value, there is no fear and you can apply the same process to essentially all industries.

Buy a book called SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham and base your script/cold calling around it. I almost guarantee you will have better results because, if done properly, you will come across as a genuine consultant almost immediately rather than a pesky salesman.
 
I find it more effective to "clean the databases first"

Great if you have both email and phone for the same people.

Our strategy both in our seminar company and real estate company - is to first clean a cold database. That is to send a relevant piece of information - that is information only.
ring to see if it was useful and if they want to stay on the database - get rid of the ones that see no value and focus your time in the ones that do.

with the ones that want to be there - we begin a nurture series - building trust over given time, then we jump on the phones and sell or arrange meetings for sale conversions.
each industry is different but the above is what has worked for us.

PS - am I reading right, you have 40 people total???? Do you mean 40,000? Or is it 40 people that are hot leads ie referrals that are easy to covert over. Surely you are not trying to work with 40 cold calls in total??? Did I miss something?
 
sorry I just got it :p

40 per day.

I would get through the list as fast as possible if you are able to maintain enthusiasm.

all the best :)
 
Jamie, a bit of background: I have tried several different strategies for building my client base and cold calling has been the most successful by far. I'm happy with the results I have been getting (achieving roughly a 5% turnaround, which is average - but I don't want to be average!), just trying to 'sharpen the saw' so to speak. Be more efficient and figure out ways to establish processes.

What are you selling?

Off-site contract paraplanning.

Who are you targeting?

Financial advisers. I spoke to a number of dealer groups as well, but the answer was almost universal - speak direct to advisers.

Who do you ask for when making the call?

The principal/business owner. The majority of advisers I contact run their own businesses. I don't call employee advisers (people that work for a bank or insurer or whatever). I get my database of contacts from the FPA and AFA online directories.

I try to focus on my target advisers (I specialise in SMSF, Estate Planning and Direct Property), but at the moment, I'm at the 'take whoever is willing to work with me' stage.
 
Buy a book called SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham and base your script/cold calling around it. I almost guarantee you will have better results because, if done properly, you will come across as a genuine consultant almost immediately rather than a pesky salesman.

Cheers, bro! I will definitely check out this book.
 
If you have emailed and called and they have not given you a "no", what do they give you? Do they say call again? Do they say "let me think about it"?

I know nothing about business, but as a bank customer, I get calls every month or so to see if we need anything. I'm so sick of it, but it seems I either have to ask them to stop calling or be rude (which I don't want to do). Perhaps they will keep calling until I AM rude to them and then if I ever need them I could have a black mark against my name.

I've tried the "I'll let you know if I need anything" and that certainly doesn't stop them.

In your line of business, I would think they either know they want to pursue your offer or not. Are they (like me) too polite to tell you to back off?

I think by continuing to call until you get a definite "NO" is probably annoying them, but (as I said before) I have no idea.

In my casual retail work I give very short response to the overseas calls to see if I want to upgrade my (work) phone plan, electricity provider etc.
 
Be very reluctant to leave a phone message.

If the adviser is unavailable, I leave a message that I've called with the receptionist, but always call back; I don't wait for them to call me.

I had a couple of calls go straight to answering machine and did leave messages initially, but recently decided that if I get the machine, I won't be leaving a message and if I get the machine three times in a row, I consider it a dead end.
 
I know nothing about business, but as a bank customer, I get calls every month or so to see if we need anything.
Half yer luck. My Bank has never ever called me, and I'm into them for 7 figures, so I reckon the interest income I provide them is worth a bit of TLC...but no.

I'm so sick of it, but it seems I either have to ask them to stop calling or be rude (which I don't want to do). Perhaps they will keep calling until I AM rude to them and then if I ever need them I could have a black mark against my name.

I've tried the "I'll let you know if I need anything" and that certainly doesn't stop them.
Pretty simple response - I would be saying; "Review all my fees, charges and interest rates, and come back to me with your pencil sharpened and I'll talk to you. Until then, please take me off your call list."
 
Pretty simple response - I would be saying; "Review all my fees, charges and interest rates, and come back to me with your pencil sharpened and I'll talk to you. Until then, please take me off your call list."

I like that response. I might try that next time.
 
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